The road of danger, guilt, and shame

the long version

This book is a close study of A.E. Housman's poetry, including light verse, parodies, juvenilia and workshop material, as well as the well-known poems of A Shropshire Lad, Last Poems, More Poems, and Additional Poems. It traces the homosexual parables written as light verse and the gay subtext and implications of the heterosexual and ambiguous poems as well as discusses the more overtly gay lyrics. This book demonstrates the depths and complexity of even the most seemingly pellucid poems, considering the poetry in the light the individual poems shed on each other as well as that provided by Housman's other writings and his life.